Tag Archives: training

A Day Off and the Last of the Fish Pie

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I blogged a bit this morning and made some plans. Julia was due on a training course at 1.30 so it made for a short day.

After dropping her off for a two hour refresher on Safeguarding I went to find a charity shop that needed three bags of second-hand books and assorted rammel. I couldn’t find one, as everywhere was so busy there was nowhere to park.

I went home and read my post before I filled two more bags with paper, including a large amount of old business paperwork from 2004-6. They missed collecting our recycling bin last week because of the snow. I feel, as I continue filling it, that they will regret this decision when they have to remove a month’s accumulated paper clearing.

The letter from the anticoagulant clinic showed I was right at the top of the range, but [assed. I don’t need to go back for two weeks.

Then I collected Julia. As usual, the training was a waste of time, though it does allow the council to tick boxes. Don’t start me on the state of Safeguarding in the UK.

She helped me find a charity shop with parking outside. She also told me off for what I said to a bus driver who sounded his horn at me in an impatient manner as I took the bags out of the car. After all the time buses have spent holding me up over the years I think he could have waited thirty seconds for me.

He even made eye-contact as he went past, just to be more aggressive about it. If he was a lip-reader he would have found this an upsetting experience. Even if he wasn’t a lip reader he could probably still make out the few short, simple words I used.

Later we went shopping as the light faded, and were surprised at the volume of birdsong. Spring, I suspect, has arrived.

Then we returned home and ate Fish Pie. Julia topped it with sweet potato this time so we’ve had four different toppings in the last week – potato, potato and swede, potato and parsnip and sweet potato.

It’s not quite the lifestyle I envisaged for myself when I was young and ambitious.

 

Back in the Game

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I went out for a walk today, my first since last week. Well, if you consider 200 yards a walk. I liked it so much that I may do it again before going to bed.

Strange to think that it was only the end of December when we made our plan to get out into nature and do more walking. Now I’m struggling to get out of the house. It just goes to show how life can change in an instant.

Here’s another example of how you’re life can change in an instant. I actually saw him at the hospital on Wednesday. He was crossing the car park in a wheelchair as I hobbled around to the Urgent Treatment Centre. I didn’t actually know who he was until I saw the news on my return from hospital.

So, I’m going to get a grip and start making a note of my walking every day.  It might only be 200 yards a day, but as long as it’s 201 yards next time it’s progress. To put that in context, it’s enough to get me from the car park to the lake at Rufford. Getting round the lake may take a little longer…

The photos are from previous visits, but I’m hoping to get some new ones soon.

 

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Through the window

 

 

 

Too lazy to work: too scared to steal

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I’m beginning to regret my new routine. It’s all very well saying I’m going to take Fridays off because it’s the only time we get a full day to ourselves and we need to spend time together, but (and sorry,  I know I’ve said this before) I have to be pretty nimble to avoid ending up with Friday as a housekeeping day.

I’ve been avoiding a bag of bedding for the last few months. I have enough laundry to do, without taking on this third bulging bag. Additionally, it seems to devour other items in the drier so you end up with a duvet cover full of assorted shirts and the folding process always seems to provoke offers of help. I don’t mind nodding to people in the laundry but full scale conversation whilst fishing underpants out of a duvet cover is a step too far.

Anyway, knowing that she had her heart set on laundry, I rose early, whispered that she should treat herself to a lie in on her day off  and attempted to sneak out with an abridged version of the laundry and a book. Not that I’m well-adapted to “sneaking” or any other sort of clandestine movement.

After 26 and a bit years of marriage she has developed an extraordinary sense of telling that I am about to do something sneaky, even when she’s asleep. I nearly used the word “snoring” there but “asleep” seems more tactful, particularly as she reads the blog.

Next time I won’t pause to check library opening hours and buy two new belts from Jacamo on the computer, I will just get the stuff into the car and make off into the cold, grey dawn.

It has to be said that there is an advantage to her way of doing laundry. I normally launch a hit-and-run operation, with the wash and wear programme followed by throwing it into a drier. Using more laundry and the bigger machines gives you thirty or forty minutes where you can stroll down to the cafe to eat freshly prepared bacon cobs and drink large mugs of tea.

After that we looked at staff training. That’s me, as things stand at the moment. JUlia is management. I am staff. Did you know that people pay up to £300 a day to go to a conference and listen to people talk?

We are also expected to pay £100 a day just to go on council courses on safeguarding vulnerable people – these are compulsory and must be undertaken on a regular basis to ensure (a) that you keep up to date and (b) keep paying the council money. I believe this is what was referred to as a “protection racket” in the 60s but is now known as “continuing personal development”

We’re in the wrong business. Now that my legs are giving trouble bank robbery isn’t an options but training looks like a good thing to be in. It’s not quite as lucrative but it’s morally (slightly) superior and you don’t run the risk of being locked up for ten years in the company of people called Nobby and Crusher.

Unfortunately, as Julia pointed out, my specialist skills of sarcasm, being rude to customers and making soup aren’t going to get us very far in the world of corporate training.

BY that time I had to go to have my annual leg check up (it’s been a medical sort of week).  I still have two legs, they both have five toes. and my beleaguered circulatory system is still pumping blood all the way down. Good to know.